January 1, 1996
If Thomas Harris's psycho-thrillers are the creme de la creme of the genre, then Patterson's (Kiss the Girls; Along Came a Spider) are the skimmed milk--fluid, but low in substance. In his new novel, the author again lays down a narrative line so gripping--an effect achieved partly through a plethora of one-sentence paragraphs, a la Sidney Sheldon--that the reader may not notice, or care, that characterization and originality have fallen by the wayside. Patterson tells his story through two points of view: there's the the first-person voice of Maggie Bradford, who kills her abusive husband in the novel's flashback prologue and has now become a world-famous singer-songwriter (``I love your music, Maggie,'' Barbra Streisand tells her); and there's a third-person narration that is often filtered through the eyes of Will Shepherd, the celebrated soccer star who romances Maggie after her interim lover, an older tycoon, dies of a heart attack. The devastatingly handsome Will likes to hurt women (``there was a distinctly good part in him, but also a bad part''), however, and sometimes even to kill them. Will seems to want Maggie to save him from himself. Using his beauty and charm on her and her children, he wins her hand in marriage. That union sets up a major-league deja vu, two murder trials that aren't quite riveting and a final Big Twist that will only surprise those fresh to the thriller genre. Still, Will's descent into cartoonishness, and various loose threads, will probably not bother readers swept along by this lightweight pop fiction.
December 1, 1995
Beautiful Maggie Bradford seems to have it all: a successful career as a singer/songwriter, fame, money, and two precious children. However, she killed her first husband in self-defense and now she's in jail awaiting trial for the murder of her second husband, Will Shepherd, a charming, psychotic professional soccer player. At first, Maggie's marriage seems fine, but soon Will begins to act irrationally. The increasing tension comes to a head when Maggie comes to believe that Will has been sexually abusing her daughter; the resulting confrontation ends in Will's death and Maggie's arrest. Climaxing in Maggie's celebrity trial, this page-turner delivers a solid punch, complete with a surprise ending. Patterson (Kiss the Girls, Little, Brown, 1995) offers a vivid, emotionally revealing tale. Recommended for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/95.]--Stacie Browne Chandler, Whitman P.L., Mass.
November 1, 1995
Patterson takes his titles from nursery rhymes and child's play: "Along Came a Spider" (1992), "Kiss the Girls" (1994), and here the somewhat menacing game of hide-and-seek, a perfect tip-off to the mix of sweetness and evil in this quick read about a celebrity murder trial. Now there's an original idea. At any rate, Patterson's protagonist is a tall, blonde songwriter named Maggie who had a rotten childhood, then made a rotten marriage. When hubby attacks Maggie and their three-year-old daughter, Maggie shoots to kill, does, and then, mercifully, isn't charged with murder. Life goes on, and Maggie channels her grief into her music, moves to New York, and BAM! she's a star. The money pours in, she plays to adulating crowds, her music fills the airwaves. She falls in love with a wonderful man. Then he dies. Two down. Meanwhile, a very nasty boy named Will--whose mother abandoned him and his brother, whose father committed suicide, and whose aunt seduced him at a dangerously young age--is becoming a lethally nasty man. Will, a soccer star, is also famous and just happens to love Maggie's songs. When they marry, the media goes wild; when Will is shot dead, they're positively frenzied. Is the lovely songstress a killer, a black widow? Oy. This ranks right up there with chewing gum, but, hey, sometimes that's all you want, or can handle. ((Reviewed November 1, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)